I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to apparatus conveying and supporting articles, and more particularly, to a portable conveyor section having collapsible supports.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Many industrial production machines are adapted to produce a wide variety of workpieces. However, each workpiece may require a different series of operations during production. As a result, workpiece routes intermediate production machines are often temporarily erected with the use of collapsible conveyor components. However, even though the conveyors are temporarily erected, the conveyor sections must be stable enough to support and transport the workpieces along the predetermined route.
Although it has been known to employ telescoping type legs so that the height of the conveyor can be adjusted as necessary, the means for locking the telescoping sections of the legs together often produce substantial wear on the leg sections, and thus over time, can affect the ability of the leg structure to maintain the conveyor at a predetermined height. Moreover, the conveyor sections may be constructed without support structures, and special supports must be constructed for each predetermined route to assure that the conveyor bed is stably supported along the entire route. Of course, such supports requires substantial floor space when not in use and substantially increase the complexity of constructing, installing and disassembling an intermittently needed conveyor section.